The Dawn of the Doctor
by jammywho
Summary: The descent of the War Doctor into darkness and the war crimes he committed in the name of sanity. Featuring the War Doctor, Romana and other familiar faces. Set between Night of the Doctor and Day of the Doctor.
1. Darkest before the Dawn

Dying hurts. But not like this. Never before had death felt so painful; the process was burning within him, through him. Each individual layer of him was peeling itself away from him as if it were skin being rent from his bones. Every cell in his body was on fire, splitting and bursting and going supernova and trying to fix themselves together as if they were jigsaw pieces from different sets, scraping viciously against each other like continents. No two parts of him made any sort of sense together. There was only conflict and rage. But then he felt something inside him; a force plunging inside his mess of a body and trying to mould it into something resembling sanity, using his rage as a guiding light. It was difficult, like shaping liquid metal into a sculpture using only your bare hands, but like metal, he was using it, forging himself a suit of armour from all the anger and the guilt and the violence of the war. Slowly, there formed a sense of order. Hands came forth; callous hands, like gauntlets, straggly hairs bursting forth across his face and dark, empty eyes. The mind, however, was a different matter. He couldn't rebuild a splintering mind like he did the last seven times- all he could do was build a crude cage. Everything unnecessary, everything there was no place for in his new philosophy was trapped there, crushed under the weight of his trauma. He no longer had the luxury of taking prisoners. He gasped and suddenly the molten metal inside him cooled, setting into the image of a man. The regeneration energy erupted off him and in this fire, he was born. Death was born. 


	2. The Hive of Villainy

The Last Great Time War was a savage place to live, if anyone managed to live in it at all, and thus the existence of such a building as the Time Lord War Cabinet was all the more surprising. It had no place amongst the death and destruction that surrounded it for countless light years. That any structure of such magnificence could exist when everyone around had barely their lives was unthinkable. It sat right in the middle of the snow-globe citadel as a pillar of opulence that housed the bureaucrats who allowed the Time War to roll onwards in its destructive path.

Nothing on Gallifrey could compare to it, quite possibly nothing in the universe, in fact there was barely any form of order on the entire planet. The two main cities of Gallifrey, The Citadel and Arcadia, were all that remained standing; the rest was wasteland. There had been refugees when the first invasion came, but the residents of the outlands had come to realise across the years that those in power couldnd be thrown out of power and Gallifrey would be thrown out of order.

Time Lords and Ladies lined the golden walls of the Cabinet Building, all watching intently as The Lord President prepared to announce the final action of the Time War. It may not have been, of course, but one can never quite know. She was in the middle of describing the current situation in the Malvolian cluster when it happened.

s only a matter of time before they discover the secret of stellar manipulator technology. If we can eradicate one side, we could form an alliance with the other, control their weapons development to maintain the fabric of space time and also gain a powerful friend against the daleks. Now to do so I propose we side with the Osirians through a pincer the artillery fire from both sides is far too strong! To send a battalion down there would be a suicide mission!t been seen for years. The Time Lords held their breath; right now they needed a war hero, and that was what they were going to get.

A scraggly rough-around-the-edges man emerged from the TARDIS, draped in a fire-scorched leather coat and combat boots. The War Doctor had arrived.

Suicide mission?


	3. Friends in High Places

It was the prerogative of the President to have their office decorated to whatever scheme they chose. When the Doctor held that office, he had it covered in lead sheets and gears in order to disrupt the telepathic connection between him and the forces invading Gallifrey, eventually defeating them. But Romana's choice of interior was much less mechanical. Along her walls hung several paintings from several galactic dynasties; some in two dimensions, some in three and four. Taking pride of place was the Mona Lisa, in plain view from her computerised desk. "Do you remember that Doctor?" "Yes, from our misadventure with Scaroth in Paris." "Indeed. It's a fake, of course." "So it still has the writing on the back?" "I believe you signed this one." "Quite possibly; that incarnation was always rather theatrical. Why do you have all these in here, anyway?" "Well, the Braxtiel gallery needed a safeplace for some of their grander artworks and I was all too happy to oblige. And furthermore, they give me hope. I need to know that a universe capable of a war like this is also capable of great beauty and hope." She sat back in her chair, which was verging on a throne in stature and make a tent with her fingers. Back to business. "How did you get into the Cabinet, when we've sealed all temporal pathways?" "I thought we were going to cover that in 'any other business'" "I'm running a campaign here, Doctor and if you know a way into the Cabinet then who's to say the daleks can't?" "I doubt they'll ever find a dalek as clever as me. And don't worry. I've sealed up the chronon back-passage so no-one can get in. Except me of course" Romana sighed. "Of course." "Now let's waste no more time on small talk. You were giving me a mission." "Yes, why am I giving you a mission? Why aren't you just swanning around the universe like usual?" "Because war is chaos and the only way to make sense of it is with information, which the time lords have and I need. But I can't trust anyone on this damned backstabbing planet except you. So do with me what you will. I am your warrior." "A warrior now? Not a Doctor?" "Still the Doctor; this universe needs saving and I'm the one to do it." "Is that so? In which case, your first mission is to recapture an outerworld neutral observatory from unknown forces." "Unknown forces, eh? I came to you for information." "And the observatory is how we'll collect it. It's one of the major feeds into the matrix. And if I recall correctly, isn't jumping into adventures without foresight how you operate?" He allowed himself a smile. It was the last one he'd have for a while. 


	4. The Front Line

Romanas suns. Although, curiously, there had been none of the tell tale signs of time corridor technology or death rays that usually heralded a dalek invasion. There was nothing to do but to reclaim the observatory.

With extreme prejudice.

The TARDIS landed in the loosest sense of the word. It shook violently, ricocheting the Doctor around the interior like a rag doll. There was something wrong about this place. Maybe the TARDIS would know. She always did.

Except, it turned out, this time. The monitor fluctuated wildly and what appeared to be lightning bolts flashed frequently across the screen, where the space time co-ordinates were supposed to be. Almost as if time itself was rebelling against his landing here.

The TARDIS somersaulted and the Doctor was flung whichever way gravity was working at that instant. He grabbed onto the console and felt his chest crash into it; in recoil, his hands releasing their hold as he fell through the open doors below him.

He landed with a thud on an alien world and turned in time to see his faithful ship being tossed recklessly into the time vortex. He wasnd keep trying to break through the vortex to find him. All he had to do was fix whatever temporal anomaly was messing up the timestream and she Well that something would have to be something very powerful indeed.

Where was he? From what he could tell, nothing much was going on. You wouldns supercomputer. Hypothetically, you could reverse the datastream and absorb every scrap of information the Time Lords had ever collected; regeneration, defences, time travel; the lot. From what he could tell, it hadnd heard stories of these aliens in his childhood. They called themselves the Neverwere. They were created wherever timelines were replaced or eliminated; supposedly, they were beings whose desire to live was so strong that they ripped the fabric of space and time to bring themselves back into being and claim what was rightfully theirs. The Time Lords had used tales of their power and destruction as anti meddling propaganda to enforce Rassilont fight them. Not with a sonic screwdriver. All he could do was run and find something to use as a weapon and hope he came across no more of them. Especially not their leader.

He picked a corridor at random and ran, hoping it would take him somewhere useful. Peeking through the double doors, he spied what he thought was a recreational area. Hardly an armoury, of course, but it had some possibilities. The lights could possibly be used to blind themt work. The oven could cook them alive, but they were already on fire, so what good would that do? The Time Lords who took up residence in these observatories were famously unwanted on Gallifrey for their rebellious habits, so where are they? And why wasns gait fluctuated as it marched, the distance between them getting smaller every second. The Docotr waved his sonic screwdriver in desperation. Lightbulbs exploded; nothing. The oven caught fire; the figure barely flinched. The chess set turned itself on and made a move by moving a bishop down, then a rook forward, then a knight back in time. And the figure flickered, almost pixelating.

The Doctor leapt on this instantly, dashing to the chess set and jamming his screwdriver into the mechanism, forcing the pieces across the board in every direction, with pieces vanishing into the future and the past. As they did so, the figure became less and less clear, splintering as it encountered a complex time field. As the doctor turned the time distortion up to maximum, the Neverwere evaporated and the chess board burnt out.

One down, possibly hundreds more to go.

At least he knew how to compete. Fight time distortions with time distortions. They were already dangerously unstable in their quantum state; a little entropy could completely dissolve them.

But he couldnd expect from those Time Lord troublemakers. He looked into the screen and could see an idea form in his reflectiond blown up most of the room in defeating the first Neverwere, so more would soon follow. But if he played his cards right, heHello, this is the Doctor. I hereby address the Couldve heard of you, you snivelling I am the real deal. Saviour of many worlds, the death of many others. I am going to offer you one chanceOne chance to duel me. To defeat me in a battle of wits. The winner gets glory, the loser falls at the mercy of the otherOr, failing that, you can live out the remainder of your days knowing you couldt.d be roasted aliveve Been King was known on Gallifrey for his arrogance. Het fail to draw his attention.

The dark firey figures parted to reveal a figure more dark and firey than the rest of them combined. One eye opened on his shadowed face. As it closed, another opened where his chin would be. Arms came from his torso and fingers from his ears. Nothing was in the right place. His hair was an inferno.

ve come to face me. That

**He snarled. re challenging me? The conqueror of Orion-beta? The slayer of the Star Drake? The champion of the Bramble nebula?**Yes, I am. Because you seem like a worthy opponent. Or you used to be, before you got all that taken away from you. I want to see what you

**Spit flew from his (was it a mouth?) and caught fire in mid-air. **

**s all you need to know.s body stood still for a moment. So heve Been King. **

**d know of course.**Mend your words, Doctor and you may meet a kinder fate than apologies, your is your challenge? ,Is a mindbending machine. The Time Lords used them to improve their mental agility, but some found a darker use for it. I suspect the Time Lords here were of that consort. By cannibalising them and wiring two together, youre too powerful. The loser

**Like me, he thought. **

**They leant down, almost bowing, as they placed their heads into the metal clamps, which fastened instantly around them. Microscopic spikes worked their way from the clamps into their brains and propagated like cracks across their grey matter. **

**The room blurred, becoming almost transparent, as the Doctor tried to focus in on the new reality.**


	5. Another Realm

He barely had time to take in his surroundings as a blurry vision of the 'King' came at him, knocking him through space, further than should be possible with this gravity. All he could see of the sky was a glowing blue colour in all visible directions, but no visible light source or boundary. A floating white asteroid struck him in the back. He re-adjusted to the new gravity and he seemed to be able to stand shakily. He reached to touch his back –no, it wasn't his back; it was just a vision of it. He had to remember this was a mental arena, not a physical one. But if a mind thinks it's dead, then the body follows. The Could've Been King was leaping across asteroids with determination, but never once mis-stepping. Naturally, with a brain that had to adjust to multiple realities simultaneously, the 'King' would have no problem mentally navigating his way around an astral plane. Which meant the Doctor would have to rely on strategy rather than mental force. He summoned up an image of himself and threw it at the 'King'. A form emerged of a bright eyed Victorian gentleman with flowing hair, who flew towards the foe. But their foe was too quick; realising he too could summon up these projections, he pulled a jagged lightning bolt sword from the ether and swung it, cutting the vision of the Doctor in half. The Doctor felt the loss as if he had lost a limb. He forced himself up; feeling bereft of a vital part of himself, and catapulted himself forward, flying at the sword wielding alien before him. The 'King' braced and readied the sword, but the Doctor sent forth another projection; that of a white suited Englishman brandishing a cricket bat. They swung simultaneously, with the sword meeting the bat in mid-air and the bat breaking in two. The splinters in the wood ripped their way up the projection until it too fractured into millions of pieces. But the distraction had served its purpose. The Doctor had flown behind the 'King' and blasted it with a dapper caped warrior, which shattered on impact, but clearly injured the target. Flames rippled where the mental shards had struck. The sword flickered, turning deftly into a bow and arrow, which the 'King' levelled at the Doctor's new position. Arrows of hate and vengeance flew at the Doctor, which he avoided elegantly. But in the flurry of bolts, one could not be evaded. It was all the Doctor could do to summon up a scarved grinning madman to block it. He watched the grin fade as the bolt and its victim swept out of existence. The Doctor couldn't take much more of this. His past lives seemed to be detaching themselves like avalanches from an iceberg. He had only the strength for one final attack, and with his might, he forced another four figures into being, all four flying around the shadowy figure like vultures. The first flew for the target, waving its walking stick with venerated anger, but was cut short by a bow and burst before it could make contact. The next struck the bow and arrow from its hands and delivered a colourful elbow to the face, making the 'King' stumble, although in a blind strike, the vision was engulfed in its flames, its projected face vanished without a send-off. The third barrelled into the legs of the 'King, knocking him spinning into space and circled round for another strike, playing a little victory tune on its recorder. But like a dragon, the 'King' spewed solid flames from his mouth, pulverising the vision to ashes. But these had all been strategic distractions, as now the final enigmatic projection was directly behind the Could've Been King. It struck the 'King' with a jab into one of its gaping mouth holes and dissolved, forming a glowing question mark as it infiltrated the body of the 'King', rooting its way through the organs up to the brain. The 'King' contorted with pain, gliding through the empty space until colliding finally with an asteroid, which barely registered. Kneeling in agony, the 'King' could only watch as the Doctor himself landed before him, every inch a warrior, and offered a hand in mercy. "Surrender! leave this observatory and I will let you live" "Never. I have lost too much to stop now" "So be it." The Doctor struck the final blow. That should've been it. The Could've Been King should be no more, but out of nowhere, the virtual world warped; it's blue glow becoming an unforgiving red as the temperature sky-rocketed. The Doctor could feel the heat working its way across his face, right where the clamps were attached. The 'King' must be combusting in reality, and he was still strapped to the metal death trap. The body beneath him rose and swelled; its face constantly flickering through several monstrous countenances. The pain it was feeling was making the whole thing oscillate until it became a mess of writhing, angry, particles, scything away, all consumed with revenge. "I SALL NOT BE BEATEN AGAIN!" It knocked the Doctor upwards into the boiling sky. He had nothing more left, and he was dying in both realities. The pain was intense, but he could use it to his advantage. He focused on the burns on his face, and they drew him closer and closer into the physical world. The pain amplified, but now he had a little bit more control. He managed to move his own, real, finger, but in doing so, he'd given the virtual 'King' an advantage and another blow had been struck against him. He had control of an entire hand now. All he had to do was reach into a pocket… WHAM! He was beaten into asteroid after asteroid, as the many, many arms of the crazed 'King' battered him relentlessly, but at least he now had a hold of his sonic screwdriver. The 'King' didn't stop to gloat and held the Doctor down against an asteroid with a stormcloud of a foot. A blade as confused and enraged as he was, was wrenched from the bowels of this world and was instantly swung down… …To be blocked by a sonic screwdriver with an almighty clang. The Doctor activated it in both realities and the hub in his pocket started transmitting, not to Gallifrey, but downloading all of Gallifrey's resources back through it and into the mind bending machine. The Doctor felt himself heal with almost God-like power, as the information flooded around him as a loyal serpent. The Could've Been King seemed so small now through the Doctor's eyes and he crushed it like a snail, drowning it in the virtual tsunami of data, while he floated above it all. The illusion had ended and back in reality, he soniced the face clamps off and stood to look around. The Neverwere were fleeing, bottlenecking through all the doors. Some were so impatient to get away they crashed through walls to flee. In mere seconds, they were all gone and all that remained of them were a flock of red shooting stars only visible on the observatory screen. He turned back to the mind bending machine to the glowing red metal slowly receding back towards the clamps on the other side. But no-one stood there anymore; all that remained was ash from the twice fallen King. All that remained to be done was to alert the Time Lords to his success. He activated the observatory computer and sent them a video of the whole event with the subtitle "defend this better next time, for there shall be a next time". He hoped would answer any and all questions they had of him, because he had no intention of sticking around. He skulked back to his TARDIS silently. He had no idea why the Neverwere had invaded the Observatory. It could have been any number of factors; its strategic significance, its lack of proper defences, or possibly just the mad will of a mad king, striving towards glory in the only way he knew how, determined to be seen as a hero to justify his conquests. No time for questions, only actions. The War stops for no one. 


End file.
